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Guys, I just want to remind you that Italian fascism started as a movement in which veterans demanded that their sacrifice in WWI be honored by allowing them to make all the relevant political decisions. If Heinlein's book didn't capture that society in an idealized version centuries in the future, I don't know what it did.
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May 23, 2016 15:47
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I don't know if this is where all The Expanse book reading chat goes but anyways, but am halfway through book 3 when the Martian marine fires the grenade causing the slow zone to change its rules which instantly brings all the ships in the slow zone to 20g halt causing everybody not in crash couches (IE: 90% of everybody) to explode on the walls or get cut in half by doorways and it was a real  moment.
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May 23, 2016 16:56
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Amberskin posted:It comes to my memory Carl Sagan's Contact and the description of an alien sky from the eyes of Ellen. I'm currently about fifty pages into Too Like the Lightning, and it's pretty intriguing in that it's either really good or I'm going to abandon it, or both, and I can't quite tell. 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 17:28 on May 23, 2016 |
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May 23, 2016 17:23
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BAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHA http://www.therabidpuppies.com/ Looks like SOMEONE forgot to register a url, and well, magic has happened. God drat I love this man.
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May 23, 2016 17:33
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:BAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHA quote:N. K. JEMISIN - THE FIFTH SEASON
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May 23, 2016 17:48
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I wanna buy some dinosaur erotica now just to show my support.
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May 23, 2016 17:59
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chrisoya posted:This book made love real for me. It's not a happy book, but it is a very good one. Well that's definitely a good blurb for a BOTM poll
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May 23, 2016 18:04
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:BAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHA I figured it out: Chuck Tingle is an Orz.
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May 23, 2016 18:43
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Kalman posted:I figured it out: Chuck Tingle is an Orz. a *finger*
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May 23, 2016 18:54
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TheFonz posted:Hi all, I feel that Sterling's writing is more cyberpunk than Gibson a lot of the time, because while Gibson focuses on the cyber, Sterling focuses on the punk aspect doing poo poo like playing bodyguard/manager for a J-pop band that's smuggling day-after emergency abortion drugs, or living in a Chevy van and lo-jacking payphones. Gibson's more about laser guns and magic drugs and razorblade fingertips. Both are dystopian but Sterling's frankly a better writer, and he can write some really complelling sentences. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 20:55 on May 23, 2016 |
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May 23, 2016 20:49
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:BAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHA Oh man, those drat puppies did NOT know what they were getting into. Picked the wrong fight altogether.
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May 23, 2016 21:04
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Groke posted:Oh man, those drat puppies did NOT know what they were getting into. Picked the wrong fight altogether. Picked the wrong brawler, that's to be sure. Tingle as a character is all about sexual freedom and isn't about to get tied to any closed-minded bozos without deploying weirdness so strange there isn't even really a counterargument that can be made.
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May 23, 2016 21:36
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:BAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHA Chuck Tingle is my loving hero. In more ways than one.
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May 23, 2016 23:12
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Groke posted:Oh man, those drat puppies did NOT know what they were getting into. Picked the wrong fight altogether. Chuck is one of those goons who say they make six figures writing minecraft fan fiction and gay erotica, and self-publishing it on amazon.
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May 24, 2016 02:21
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Tokamak posted:Chuck is one of those goons who say they make six figures writing minecraft fan fiction and gay erotica, and self-publishing it on amazon. He probably does. His books sell *really* well.
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May 24, 2016 02:24
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Amberskin posted:None of those passages compare with the place described in the McDevitts novel. Just trying to visualize it makes me goosebumps. He puts aside the science and the exploration for a moment, and just tells the reader: EH, THIS IS A loving BIG UNIVERSE WHERE loving AWESOME THINGS ARE AWAITING SOMEONE TO WRITE ABOUT THEM. I love the opening passages in The Engines of God which describe the giant alien ice sculpture and the footprints of the carver leading up to it. The whole idea of the Monument Makers was a fabulous mystery, with a lot of similar sights.
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May 24, 2016 15:46
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RoboCicero posted:Hey everyone, I wanted to bust into this thread and say that The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin is easily one of my favorite books this year! Honestly deserves all the awards it can get. Hell yeah lets talk about WTF is going on in Fifth Season. I didn't know until the very last page that it was book 1 of 3 so that's a thing, but there's no reason we can't speculate wildly. The Thing at the center of the Fulcrum: what. It somehow makes the obelisks, the obelisks are tied to the stoneborn. In some way it appears to be a literal embodiment of Father Earth, and hints at being a past AI type thing that went bad and started to destroy everything. And it apparently controls the Guardians or at least influences them. Other then that, it's a puzzler. What happened to Alabaster's other kids? He seems to hint that they're made into nodes but I was wondering if it was more than that. What in the heck is up with the obelisks? What is Hoa's deal? Seems like the Stone eaters form some sort of weird semi-sexual bond with Orogenes but I didn't really suss out the details. Also, I appreciate that N.K. Jemisin indulged her love of getting it on with moody world-destroying men but in a fresh new way.
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May 25, 2016 18:16
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and then you're start hooting and hollering because somehow, someway, orogenes managed to destroy the moon, and that's why the Stillness is all hosed up.
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May 25, 2016 18:27
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Thanks for reminding me, put in a vote for Fifth Season!Copernic posted:The Thing at the center of the Fulcrum: what. It somehow makes the obelisks, the obelisks are tied to the stoneborn. In some way it appears to be a literal embodiment of Father Earth, and hints at being a past AI type thing that went bad and started to destroy everything. And it apparently controls the Guardians or at least influences them. Other then that, it's a puzzler. The book says that Alabaster's kids are all turned into nodes or Guardians if they're not found useful or not obedient enough. It's pretty grim, though honestly I feel like when he tells Syenite "do whatever you have to, don't let them take coru" I thought he was implying he'd be okay with a double-suicide. There is something going on with stone eaters and bonding with a specific orogene that reads as predatory to me. There's a weird way stone eaters feed off of orogenes and I'm not sure if it has to do with Alabaster literally turning to stone or if that was just him burning out after causing the quake. Stone eaters are definitely up to something though, at the beginning of the book it seems like Alabaster was furthering their agenda in a way that has nothing to do with incidentally killing off humanity. Maybe they originally came from the moon or something? And what's the deal with Guardians? I feel like Jemisin isn't going to give us a traditional sequel if The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is anything to go by so maybe we'll follow a Guardian in the next book.
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May 25, 2016 19:10
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Fifth season is a BOTM poll choice so vote em if you got em sequel is looking pretty great 
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May 25, 2016 19:55
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There's more than one reason it's called The Fifth Season 
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May 25, 2016 20:13
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Amberskin posted:Absolutely true. In no moment in the book is anything about a supreme leader, caudillo, fuhrer or duce, which is one of the key points about fascist(-ish) societies. Basically, everything is opt-in. A citizen must do a period of public service (military or not) if he wants to be able to vote, but can opt-out at any moment, and all the "punishement" he or she gets is he will not be able to participate in politics. Being forced to serve the state in exchange for suffrage isn't fascism, exactly, but is still a dumb idea no more sophisticated than an old man grumbling about drat kids these days not doing any hard work, which I guess is more or less what Heinlein was.
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May 25, 2016 23:44
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I wonder what position Heinlein would have taken on the various breeds of Puppies. I'm honestly not sure.
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May 26, 2016 00:01
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Kesper North posted:I wonder what position Heinlein would have taken on the various breeds of Puppies. I'm honestly not sure. It's a good question, but if his later work is any guide, he'd have been hugely pro-Tingle.
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May 26, 2016 00:30
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's a good question, but if his later work is any guide, he'd have been hugely pro-Tingle. It would depend on if "one's own butt" counts as incest.
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May 26, 2016 01:54
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Time Enough For Tingle?
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May 26, 2016 04:06
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fritz posted:It would depend on if "one's own butt" counts as incest. Heinlein actually wrote a story where the protagonist went back in time, had a sex change, had sex with himself, and gave birth to himself. ("All You Zombies") What can you say? He was ahead of his time. The original buckaroo
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May 26, 2016 04:22
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freebooter posted:Being forced to serve the state in exchange for suffrage isn't fascism, exactly, but is still a dumb idea no more sophisticated than an old man grumbling about drat kids these days not doing any hard work, which I guess is more or less what Heinlein was. Well, it could be said that right now and in our democratic societies you actually have to serve the state. You know, several months a year of my salary goes to taxes. Sure I don't have to shoot man-eating cockroaches with a nuclear bazooka, but I'm indirectly giving my time to the old good government. (And I think it is not necessarily a bad thing). Hieronymous Alloy posted:Heinlein actually wrote a story where the protagonist went back in time, had a sex change, had sex with himself, and gave birth to himself. ("All You Zombies") There is a movie based on that story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_(film) By the way, the story is awesome, it is really the ultimate time-travel gimmick and everyone should read it. Amberskin fucked around with this message at 18:06 on May 26, 2016 |
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May 26, 2016 18:04
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Amberskin posted:Well, it could be said that right now and in our democratic societies you actually have to serve the state. You know, several months a year of my salary goes to taxes. Sure I don't have to shoot man-eating cockroaches with a nuclear bazooka, but I'm indirectly giving my time to the old good government. quote:There is a movie based on that story
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May 26, 2016 18:16
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Heinlein actually wrote a story where the protagonist went back in time, had a sex change, had sex with himself, and gave birth to himself. ("All You Zombies") Actually thinking about this a bit more, and going by what I remember of things like excerpts from the Patterson biography (https://sanseverything.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/the-problems-with-pattersons-heinlein-biography/) and what I've read of the Panshin critique (http://www.panshin.com/critics/Dimension/hdcontents.html) (and reactions to that), I can't really see Heinlein as anything but a Sad Puppy (not all of them are fans tho: http://johncwright.livejournal.com/30522.html)
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May 26, 2016 20:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Heinlein actually wrote a story where the protagonist went back in time, had a sex change, had sex with himself, and gave birth to himself. ("All You Zombies") The film adaptation of this, "Predestination," was not at all bad.
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May 26, 2016 21:12
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Amberskin posted:Well, it could be said that right now and in our democratic societies you actually have to serve the state. You know, several months a year of my salary goes to taxes. Sure I don't have to shoot man-eating cockroaches with a nuclear bazooka, but I'm indirectly giving my time to the old good government. This is a bit different, though - if you don't earn enough money you don't pass the threshhold and don't pay tax (or at least not income tax). And I'm sure you wouldn't suggest that poor people don't deserve to vote.
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May 27, 2016 00:01
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It is not at all uncommon in democratic countries to require military or civil service from citizens. I think the US is an exception in not requiring any kind of civic engagement from its citizens rather than the rule.
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May 27, 2016 11:58
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bonds0097 posted:It is not at all uncommon in democratic countries to require military or civil service from citizens. I think the US is an exception in not requiring any kind of civic engagement from its citizens rather than the rule. Nope, almost everyone in Europe gave up as well.  Blue is no enforced military service. Austria and Switzerland aren't NATO members so they still enforce it.
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May 27, 2016 12:22
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bonds0097 posted:It is not at all uncommon in democratic countries to require military or civil service from citizens. I think the US is an exception in not requiring any kind of civic engagement from its citizens rather than the rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription And it's never about enfranchisement, you aren't required to serve to get a vote. edit: beaten while I was deciding what to type...
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May 27, 2016 12:27
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More Hugo updates: https://twitter.com/ChuckTingle/status/735624694804578304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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May 27, 2016 12:32
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I love that man as only a true buckaroo can 
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May 27, 2016 12:58
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tooterfish posted:Not really, it's definitely not the norm for liberal democracies. There's only four countries in Western Europe that still do it for example, and that's mostly due to inertia IMO: Switzerland, Greece, Norway and Austria. In Norway, at least, it's barely enforced; all young men are theoretically bound to serve a term but it's very easy to get out on the flimsiest of excuses these days. Used to be hard but that changed in the 1990s when the Cold War ended and the defense budgets shrank at the same time a large age cohort reached conscription age (so they started cutting more slack because feeding and training a recruit for a year costs money).
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May 27, 2016 13:07
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I think it's Turkey? that has the best "Get out of service" requirement. You don't have to serve if you are gay, but you have to prove it by bringing in a photo of you having gay sex, and you have to be the catcher, not the pitcher.
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May 27, 2016 13:20
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tooterfish posted:Not really, it's definitely not the norm for liberal democracies. There's only four countries in Western Europe that still do it for example, and that's mostly due to inertia IMO: Switzerland, Greece, Norway and Austria. It's not inertia. Three of the countries you mentioned aren't NATO members, and Greece fears a hot war with Turkey over Cyprus/whatever. But I forget this isn't D&D. Anyway, coming down after a binge of non-fic about the Middle East, Islam, Israel and Hamas, which left me all exhausted and bitter, I picked up Prophets by N. Andrew Swann hoping for some trashy space opera action. Then I opened the book and, bang, Space Islam. 
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May 27, 2016 15:56
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